Meet Malaysian band, An Honest Mistake (Part 2)

In September, Malaysian pop rock band An Honest Mistake released their first major label single “We’re Alright,” which is available on digital platforms in Asia. They hope to take their music outside Malaysia to a larger audience including the Philippines.

Music Geek got to know more about the band in an Q&A week where they talked about their curious choice of name, their sound, their transition from an indie band to signing with a major label, and working with Filipinos.

(Part 2)
As the main songwriter, where do you draw inspiration when you write your songs?

DT: I draw inspiration from everything and anything at all. There was one song I wrote up in the hills. I used metaphors like stars and the sky and the sun. I felt inspired so I wrote the song. For our new single, “We’re Alright”, that song is actually a representation of relationships in this generation. Because relationships are so uncertain, you don’t know what’s going to happen. You may be starting to go out with somebody you think you love and in two months the relationship will end because you get bored. But then it doesn’t only apply to single people; it also applies to people who have been in long relationships. You can be in a long relationship but not know where it is going even if you’re married. I wrote that song with a perspective of a person that is going through something like that. With a question in the beginning of a song “are we alright?” and with the answer in the end saying, “Yeah, we’re fine, we’re alright.” That’s how the inspiration came from.

An Honest Mistake

Since you are here in the Philippines, are you hoping to collaborate with our local artists?

DT: This is actually not our first time in here the Philippines. This is our ninth time. We’ve been to Cebu for Sinulog and it’s amazing. We’ve been to Manila five or six times. So we’ve become familiar with the local bands here. And we’ve become really good friends. But personally, one of the bands we want to work with is Urbandub. I know Gabby (Alipe). And we’re performing with them at Threadfest. We definitely want to work with them because they came out from Cebu and making it big here. That’s really something that we want to achieve because we came from smaller cities in Malaysia.

How was the experience working with a Filipino director Jasper Lawan and singer Julz Savard for your music video “We’re Alright”?

DT: I was scrolling through YouTube one day and I ended up looking for this band that I like. They are a band from Germany and the video was actually shot here. Later on I found out that it was shot by Jasper. I went to his page and I saw a bunch of videos that he had done. I was really impressed so I said I think we get this guy to Malaysia to get to shoot our music video. We did some computations and we figured it will be cost effective to shoot the music video here. So we went here in June. Jasper is a good visionary. In terms of Julz, she is in a band called Save Me Hollywood. We’ve been friends for a long time. Because we kept coming back, we have established a really good friendship. So I decided since we’re here why don’t you become part of our music video since you are already an actress yourself.

LC: But in terms of the experience, it was nice. We really didn’t have to worry about anything. Everything’s all sorted out. We just showed up. It was amazing. To be able to cross the borders and have a synergy that forms out of talents of different countries. That is something that is really inspiring for us. It’s more fun in the Philippines again and again and again.

What do you guys love the most about the Philippines?

DT: Filipinos are just amazing people. They are really warm people.

TT: What we really love here is Jollibee! We want to eat Jollibee and take it back home to KL.

DT: We really believe in crossing borders. We have crossed over to India, Taiwan, Korea, Indonesia and Singapore. We’ve around to the region but at the same time we always come back to the Philippines. The music scene here is constantly filled with so many musicians and bands. Something that is very cool.